Born in Another World With Two E Rank Skills!?

The battlefield was chaos incarnate.

Elira's phantom arrows zipped across the ruined plain, weaving between broken trees and shattered stone—but Maledir's hand flicked lazily, and the arrows vanished mid-flight, teleported away to some unknown corner of the world.

Mira dashed in, blades of light gleaming in her hands. She slashed high, low, then spun, aiming a crescent sweep of searing brilliance at the Lord's chest.

But Maledir didn't block.

He vanished—and reappeared beside her, catching one of her blades with his bare fingers. With a twist of his wrist, he redirected it backward. Mira stumbled, breath catching as her own light sliced into her shoulder. She hissed in pain but held her ground.

Behind him, Garron surged in.

"I won't let you hurt them!"

His blade—crafted with care from the finest steel—arced toward the Lord's back.

But it never hit.

In the span of a heartbeat, Maledir touched the blade—and it disappeared.

Garron froze mid-swing, his arms thrown off-balance. "What—?! My sword!"

The Lord didn't even look back. "It now belongs to the void."

Elira cursed. "He's not teleporting us… he can't. Not without consent."

Kael's mind raced, gears turning as he watched.

That's why Maledir keeps redirecting spells and weapons…

He can't move living things. Only objects, spells, energy.

Across the field, Dalen roared, casting another fireburst. Flames spun toward Maledir in a wave—but again, the Lord redirected the inferno mid-flight. The fire turned, coiling like a serpent, and lashed back toward Dalen.

The old mage barely rolled aside, coughing as the edge of the blast singed his robes.

Kael turned inward. It's a rule. A law. Teleportation requires consent for living things.

His eyes darted to Garron's now-empty hands, to Mira's bleeding shoulder, to Elira with a long gash across her hip, limping and pale.

Maledir was winning by attrition—wearing them down, turning their strength against them.

Kael clenched his fists. Then don't give him something to turn.

He drew on his own skills—Light Weaving, Pyrokinesis, Sword Savant, even Starburst—but used them unpredictably, misdirecting their function, combining them in small, disjointed bursts to avoid providing clean attack vectors.

Still, Maledir adapted.

When Kael hurled Starburst directly at him, the Lord smirked—and teleported it right back.

Kael barely dodged. The explosive sphere clipped his calf, igniting flesh and fabric. Pain lanced up his leg—second-degree burns blistering immediately. He stumbled, gasping, as sweat ran down his brow.

And yet, he stayed standing.

Maledir took a step forward—until Kael's Omni-Vision flared.

In that instant, Kael saw it again: the silvery thread, the connection that linked one space to another.

He focused. Not on the Lord.

But on the bridge.

And with a pulse of his magic, he shifted the exit.

Maledir blinked. He began to teleport.

And vanished—into a nowhere Kael had rerouted.

Not a place.

But a rift.

A severed path.

The Lord's voice echoed from a hundred directions: "No—!"

Then silence.

Kael dropped to one knee, panting.

The battlefield quieted.

Garron fell back, breathing hard. "What… happened?"

"I moved the connection." Kael's voice was ragged. "Mid-teleport. He was bound to that tether. I shifted the end. There was… nowhere to land."

Elira nodded slowly, leaning on Mira for balance. "So he's not dead."

"No." Kael's gaze stayed fixed on the air where Maledir had vanished. "Just trapped. In-between. Not living, not gone. No time. No place."

"Why didn't I level up?" Kael said

Kael was silent for a long moment.

"Because I didn't defeat him. I just stopped him."

"But… could you have."

"I didn't want to." Kael looked down at his burned leg. "If he can be imprisoned… maybe someday, he can be redeemed."

Mira placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder. "You're different, Kael. You don't fight to win. You fight to protect."

He didn't answer.

But her words settled into his soul like warmth.